1. Field of the Invention
In general, the present invention relates to a control apparatus and a control method. In particular, the present invention relates to a control apparatus and a control method for controlling equipment such as a video camera so as to exclude undesired bodies from a desired picture of a photographic object being taken in a tracking operation carried out to follow the movement of the desired photographic object.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, there has been provided a tracking system of a video camera for controlling the movement of the video camera so as to always place a photographic object at the center of the screen whereby the video camera is driven by using pan and tilt mechanisms so as to enable the video camera to follow the movement of a photographic object. The patent applicant of the present invention has proposed a tracking apparatus and a tracking method for keeping track of a photographic object without being affected by changes in environment as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei8-11654.
A tracking system of a video camera described above adopts a tracking method comprising the steps of identifying the characteristics of a photographic object, detecting the position of the photographic object, finding the amount of a displacement of the photographic object from the center of the screen and controlling a panning motor and a tilting motor so as to make the amount of the displacement equal to zero. The ranges of the panning and tilting movements which are each also referred to as a tracking range is determined only by the mechanism of the driving unit.
Also in a pan/tilter system for carrying out panning or tilting driving by manually operating a video camera, the tracking ranges of the panning and tilting are determined by only the mechanism of the driving unit.
In the tracking system of a video camera described above, however, the tracking ranges are determined only by the panning and tilting mechanisms which are referred to hereafter simply as a panning/tilting mechanism for the sake of convenience. As a result, when a body incorrectly recognizable with ease as a photographic object exists in a tracking range, in some cases, the tracking system inadvertently moves in a direction toward a location at which the body exists even if such incorrect recognition is known in advance, raising a problem that the video camera does not keep track of the photographic object, which should naturally be tracked, due to the incorrect recognition of the body and inadvertently takes a picture of the body.
In addition, in the pan/tilter system of a video camera described above, the tracking ranges are determined only by the panning/tilting mechanism. As a result, when a body, the image of which the user does not want to photograph or should not be taken or something like it exists in a tracking range, in some cases, the tracking system inadvertently moves in a direction toward a location of the body with ease due to an incorrect operation even if the existence of such a non-photographic object in the tracking range is known in advance, raising a problem that the video camera inadvertently takes a picture of the body.